{"id":11774,"date":"2015-09-03T07:32:13","date_gmt":"2015-09-03T12:32:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=11774"},"modified":"2015-09-03T07:32:13","modified_gmt":"2015-09-03T12:32:13","slug":"usnato-embrace-psy-ops-and-info-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=11774","title":{"rendered":"US\/NATO Embrace Psy-ops and Info-War"},"content":{"rendered":"<header>\n<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/2015\/09\/02\/usnato-embrace-psy-ops-and-info-war\/\" target=\"_blank\">US\/NATO Embrace Psy-ops and Info-War<\/a><\/h3>\n<p class=\"entry-meta\"><strong>Exclusive:\u00a0The U.S. government and NATO have entered the Brave New World of \u201cstrategic communications,\u201d merging psy-ops, propaganda and P.R. in order to manage the perceptions of Americans and the world\u2019s public, reports veteran war correspondent Don North.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<hr \/>\n<p>As reflected in a recent NATO conference in Latvia and in the Pentagon\u2019s new \u201cLaw of War\u201d manual, the U.S. government has come to view the control and manipulation of information as a \u201csoft power\u201d weapon, merging psychological operations, propaganda and public affairs under the catch phrase \u201cstrategic communications.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This attitude has led to treating psy-ops \u2013 manipulative techniques for influencing a target population\u2019s state of mind and surreptitiously shaping people\u2019s perceptions \u2013 as just a normal part of U.S. and NATO\u2019s information policy.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"image-anchor\" href=\"http:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/DSC_7158.jpeg?55ac53\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-15802\" src=\"http:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/DSC_7158-300x212.jpeg?55ac53\" alt=\"Dr. Stephen Badsey, Professor of Conflict studies, Wolverhampton University, U.K.\" width=\"300\" height=\"212\" data-lazy-loaded=\"true\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe NATO case and argument is that NATO\u2019s approach to psy-ops is to treat it as an essentially open, truthful and benign activity and that, plus the elimination of any meaningful distinctions\u00a0between domestic and foreign media institutions and social media, means that psy-ops and public affairs have effectively fused,\u201d said British military historian, Dr. Stephen Badsey, one of the world\u2019s leading authorities on war and the media.<\/p>\n<p>Badsey said NATO has largely abandoned the notion that there should be a clear distinction between psy-ops and\u00a0public affairs, although NATO officially rules out the dissemination of \u201cblack propaganda,\u201d knowingly false information designed to discredit an adversary.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe long argument as to whether a firewall should be maintained between psy-ops and information\u00a0activities and public affairs has now largely ended, and in my view the wrong side won,\u201d Badsey added.<\/p>\n<p>And, as part of this Brave New World of \u201cstrategic communications,\u201d the U.S. military and NATO have now gone on the offensive against news organizations that present journalism which is deemed to undermine the perceptions that the U.S. government seeks to convey to the world.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>US\/NATO Embrace Psy-ops and Info-War Exclusive:\u00a0The U.S. government and NATO have entered the Brave New World of \u201cstrategic communications,\u201d merging psy-ops, propaganda and P.R. in order to manage the perceptions of Americans and the world\u2019s public, reports veteran war correspondent Don North. As reflected in a recent NATO conference in Latvia and in the Pentagon\u2019s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[6963,8657,8656,553,620,655,8654,1161,8655,834,862],"class_list":["post-11774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","category-liberty","tag-consortium-news","tag-information-policy","tag-law-of-war","tag-nato","tag-pentagon","tag-propaganda","tag-psy-ops","tag-public-relations","tag-strategic-communications","tag-us","tag-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11774"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11774\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11775,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11774\/revisions\/11775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}